


Hold On Tight, Don't Let Go

by Duck_Life



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anxiety, Awkwardness, F/F, First Dates, Friendship, Repressed Nerd, Ultimate Wingman, Voice of Reason
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-13
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-22 07:18:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8277442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Duck_Life/pseuds/Duck_Life
Summary: Pearl gets some help from Steven and Amethyst while preparing for her first date with a beautiful, mysterious woman.





	

Pearl uses Steven’s phone to dial the number, and then she presses it too close to her ear so that when Beautiful Mysterious Stranger answers it’s like a bullhorn. “Hello?”

Pearl jumps and then juggles awkwardly with the phone before regaining her composure. “Hi,” she says— and then she doesn’t say anything else.

“Um,” the woman on the other end says. “Can I ask who is calling?”

“Yes, yes, absolutely,” she chirps, fumbling. “Yes, you _may_ ask who’s calling and, ah, the person who is calling is me. Pearl. Pearl of the Crystal Gems. Hi.”

A pause, and then— soft laughter. “You’re that cute girl from the Mike Krol show.”

Pearl blushes and fidgets with her skirt. “Yes, and from the donut store before that. And from the driving!”

“Right, right.” It sounds like she’s smiling. “So, what’s new with you? Run from any more cops?”

Pearl leans on the counter like she needs support. Socialization is hard. “No, no, no more cops,” she says. “Horrible gem-fusion monsters, yes. But no cops.”

The girl whistles. “And to think, all I’ve been doin’ is going to work.”

“Oh,” Pearl says, gears in her head cranking. “Oh, what a… what a _drag_.” She can hear laughing on the other end.

“But I’m off Friday,” she tells Pearl. “Why don’t I swing by and take you out to lunch?”

Pearl knocks a plastic bowl off the counter in surprise, but she recovers fast enough. “Okay! Okay. I live in the big temple on the beach. It looks like a woman. The temple, not the beach. Although actually, when viewed from far above the beach _does_ sort of look like a woman. I know that because one time I had commandeered a giant hand-shaped spaceship and was hurtling toward— oh, yes one o’clock is just fine! Okay. Okay. I’ll see you then.”

She clicks “end call” and then spins around to see Steven, Connie, Amethyst and Lion watching her every move. “How did I do?”

Lion roars in approval but Amethyst and Connie are quick to jump in with notes. Steven’s too busy jumping with excitement to offer criticism— Connie actually has to stop him from floating into the ceiling.

Pearl takes the small victory and tries to get ready for her date.

She ends up spending Friday morning modeling outfits for Steven and Amethyst. “Okay,” Amethyst says, reclining on the couch. “Twirl again.”

“I already twirled.”

“That’s why I said _again_.”

“Ugh.” But Pearl twirls, showing off the blue dress she has draped over her normal clothes. “How’s that?”

“Still hard to tell,” says Amethyst. “Maybe you should do another twirl.”

“ _Amethyst_.”

“Fine, fine.” She relents. “I don’t think the dress is working.”

Pearl groans and shimmies out of the dress before folding it and setting it on the coffee table. “Now what? We’re running perilously low on clothing.”

“I liked the jeans and the ‘Re-elect Dewey’ t-shirt,” Steven pipes up. “It says, ‘I’m casual, but I’m still politically informed.’”

“No, no,” Amethyst says, tossing the t-shirt on the floor as Pearl pulls on the jeans. “This girl’s _cool_. You can’t go in there all… yuppie. You need a shirt that says you’re _cool_.” She thinks for a second, and then leans over the back of the couch, reappearing a second later with a very wrinkled Mr. Universe shirt. “You need _this_.”

“How long has that been back there?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Amethyst lobs her the shirt. It smells like mildew. “Try it on.”

“I’ll pass.” Pearl tries folding the shirt as best she can without touching it too much and then sets it on the coffee table. “What’s wrong with this?” she says, gesturing to her jeans.

“They just don’t _go_.”

“Maybe if you added a boa,” Steven says.

“It doesn’t need a boa.” They all look toward the warp pad to see Garnet smirking. “It just needs a little style.” And Garnet drags Pearl off to her room, leaving Amethyst and Steven to wait.

They’ve almost run out of things to do other than cleaning up (including a very underwhelming game of Steven Tag, making sandwiches, prank-calling Peridot, and seeing how many game pieces they can switch into the wrong game boxes). It’s dangerously close to one o’clock when Garnet reappears.

“Presenting,” she says with a flourish, “Date-Ready Pearl!”

Pearl steps into view. She’s lost the jeans, and in their place— her normal skirt. The outfit she has on all the time. She looks exactly the same.

Steven beams. “It’s _perfect_.”

Steven and Amethyst have their noses pressed to the glass when Pearl goes outside to meet up with the girl. They shake hands again. It’s adorable and awkward and perfect. “C’mon, Garnet,” Steven says. She’s just leaning back on the couch. “You gotta see this.”

“Already saw it,” she says, and taps her visor.

Outside, the girl carefully places her spare helmet on Pearl’s head and then makes sure to buckle it under her chin. Even from the house, Steven and Amethyst can see that Pearl’s blushing. The girl helps Pearl swing up onto her motorcycle and then gets on herself. As they speed off into the city, Pearl wraps her arms around the girl’s waist and hangs on tight.

Steven watches TV and wonders how Pearl’s date is going and makes a sandwich and wonders how Pearl’s date is going and reorganizes his Guys and wonders how Pearl’s date is going and calls Connie and wonders how Pearl’s date is going and draws a picture of Dog-Copter and Cookie Cat being friends and wonders how Pearl’s date is going.

“How do you think Pearl’s date is going?” he asks, plopping down on the couch next to Amethyst.

“Oh yeah, _that’s_ where she went.” Amethyst tosses the manga she’s borrowing from Lapis on the coffee table and kicks back on the couch. “Best case scenario? She fell off the motorcycle and the girl didn’t notice.”

“ _Amethyst_.”

“What? Pearl’s not exactly, ah, _smooth_.” That’s an understatement. It’s amazing how someone so graceful and skilled can turn into such a bumbling potato of a person anytime she’s close to a cute girl. “I just don’t want her to embarrass herself.”

“You should have a little faith in her,” Steven says.

At that moment Pearl sprints up the steps and into the house, slams the door, slides shut the lock, and whirls to face them. “We have to move.”

“What?”

“Pack your things, Steven,” she says, hectic spots of color rising on her face. As she tramps around wildly she grabs things at random— a dirty dish towel, a puzzle box, a lamp. “We have to leave _now_.”

“Calm down, Pearl,” Amethyst says. Pearl looks appalled and offended. “Come on, P, it couldn’t’ve been _that_ bad.”

Pearl glares at her for a full second before opening her mouth. “She asked me what I wanted to eat. And I said, ‘I channel the collective power of the universe through my gem and convert it to sustainable energy and I don’t need to eat,’ and she said, ‘Alright then. Cheap date.’”

“That’s… that’s salvageable.”

“I’m not done,” Pearl says through clenched teeth. “ _Then_ she asked me what I did for a living and I panicked and said… I said I was a paralegal.”

“But you don’t know anything about laws.”

“ _I know_.”

Steven’s eyes flit back and forth worriedly between Pearl and Amethyst. “Still,” Amethyst says, “I think you can come back from that.”

“ _I’m not done_.”

“Oh.”

Pearl heaves in a shaky breath and exhales. “ _Then_ , when she was dropping me off three minutes ago, she said, ‘I had a great time,’ and _I_ said… I said…”

Amethyst sighs. “Pearl, nothing you could have said could possibly be _that bad_.”

“That’s it,” she says. “I said _nothing_. She said, ‘I had a great time,’ and _I_ said NOTHING. I just… left!”

“Oh,” Amethyst says. “Oh my God.”

Steven heads over to the window to look outside. “Guys, she’s still outside.”

“ _We have to move_.”

“She’s walking up here.”

Pearl frantically tries to hide behind Amethyst, who isn’t having it. She wheels around and throws her whole weight behind Pearl, who’s scrabbling to get away. Amethyst steadily muscles her toward the door until she’s right in front of it.

The girl knocks on the door. Pearl screams. Amethyst and Steven run behind the kitchen counter to watch from afar.

After the girl knocks on the door for the second time, Pearl cautiously, cautiously opens the door. “Hellllllllo?”

“Hey,” she says, smiling. Pearl feels like she might flutter out of existence. “You forgot something.”

“I did?”

“Yeah.” The girl puts a hand on her waist and one on her shoulder and hesitates, like she’s waiting to see if Pearl is going to jerk away. And then she leans in and kisses her, softly, softly.

It feels like flying.

“Oh-h,” Pearl says when they break away, blushing blue and reaching one hand behind her neck. “C-can’t believe I almost left that behind.”

“Yeah, you’re real forgetful.”

“Uh-huh.”

“See you around, Pearl,” she says, and walks away, flannel tied around her waist swishing with every step.

Finally, Pearl closes the door and turns around. Amethyst and Steven are leaning around the side of the counter smiling so widely that it’s _bound_ to be hurting them. “So,” Pearl says, “you two saw that too, right?”

The two of them immediately start babbling over each other, interspersed with words like _awesome_ and _rock star_ and _muchas smooches_.

At that moment, Garnet walks over from the warp pad. “How did the date go?”

Pearl smiles.


End file.
